Online Advertising Glossary

May 31, 20180Comments

If you’re just getting started in online advertising, you might have many doubts, specially regarding the industry specific vocabulary. To help you find this is information in the same place, we’ve put together a Online Advertising Glossary!

If there’s a term you can’t find – don’t worry! Contact us and we’ll be happy to help.

A

Ad Exchange
A technology platform that facilitates the buying and selling of media advertising inventory from multiple ad networks.

Ad Format
The type of ad spot which is usually categorised by the dimensions of the ad spot, for example 300×250.

Ad Network
A company that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements.

Ad Spot
The specific location of where an advert appears. For example “NTV A” and “NTV B” are the ad spots located next to the main content video.

Advertiser
The customer of TrafficStars which buys traffic on a CPM, CPC or Dynamic CPM basis and authorises TrafficStars to include their creatives on the selected publishers.

Auction
An instantaneous calculation for every impression of all available campaigns , converted to an eCPM, to determine which campaign receives the impression.

B

Banner
The advert used to advertise a given product. See “Creative”.

Bid
The amount that an advertiser is willing to pay for a click or a thousand impressions.

Blacklist
A method of ‘blocking’ specific sites from a RON campaign by adding the URL with a “-” before (without spaces) to the Domain List within the Audience section of the admin panel.

C

Campaign
Set up of a creative with all relevant parameters, such as Ad Format, GEO, Category, Device, etc.

Carrier
A service provider that supplies connectivity services to mobile phone and tablet subscribers.

Category
Standardised tags applied to videos to group into set categories.

Compliance
Rules applied by the internal TrafficStars Compliance Team which regulate the types of banners shown on different ad spots, according to stipulations from the publisher.

Conversion
The action of getting a sale, a subscription, a lead or another action as desired by the advertiser.

CPC – Cost per Click
A payment model which charges the advertiser for each click received.

CPM – Cost per One Thousand Impressions
A payment model which charges the advertiser for each time a banner or popunder is served a thousand times.

Creative
A creative can refer to the banner or the popunder used. See “banner” or “popunder”.

CTR
The amount of clicks received, divided by the number of impressions. This figure is then multiplied by 100 to get the Click Through Rate.

CVR
The Conversion Rate is a measure of how many successful outcomes are reported and how effective a campaign is in converting clicks to sales.

D

DSP – Demand Side Platform
A system that allows buyers of digital advertising inventory to manage multiple ad exchange and data exchange accounts through one interface.

Dynamic CPM / DCPM
A maximum CPM bid is set by the advertiser and the system automatically manages the CPM of the campaign according to the offer and demand. If the demand is high, the system increases the bid to the max CPM agreed. If the demand is low, the system decreases the CPM to the minimum possible.

F

Flag
A compliance marker which is applied to banners and popunders depending on the type of creative and the content within. The system then uses flags to only display ads which comply with the regulations of that specific publisher.

I

IP List/IP Range
A list of IP addresses which you can use to target or exclude specific Internet Service Providers in the targeting of a campaign.

L

Landing Page
A web page which acts as the entry point for a website or a particular section of a website.

N

Native Ads
Ads delivered in a way that is consistent with the form, style and voice of the platform they appear on.

O

Optimise
The act of modifying a campaign, banner or landing page based on results achieved in order to improve future performance.

P

Popunder
A type of window which appears hidden behind the main browser window. Once displayed, the popunder remains unnoticed until the main browser window is closed, leaving the user’s attention free for the advertisement.

Postitial
A full page banner ad which is shown between two pages of content.

Prime
In the “Audience” menu in a TrafficStars campaign, there are two ways of targeting ad spots and publishers. Prime is to target specific websites and ad spots, and RON is to run your creatives on the whole network. See “RON – Run of Network”.

Publisher
The customer of TrafficStars which sells traffic on a CPM basis and authorises TrafficStars to include advertisers’ creatives on their selected sites.

R

Retargeting
A form of online advertising where consumers are targeted based on their previous online actions.

RON – Run of Network
In the “Audience” menu in a TrafficStars campaign, there are two ways of targeting ad spots and publishers. Prime is to target specific websites and ad spots, and RON is to run your creatives on the whole network. See “Prime”.

S

S2S
Server to server tracking is a server-based tracking which does not use cookies. Instead, tracking information is stored on the server level along with IDs associated with it. When a conversion happens, a server sends a postback to register it.

Split Testing
Sometimes referred to as A/ B testing. The method of testing two or more different versions of banner, popunder or landing page to identify which performs better.

SSP
Supply Side Platform is a technology platform that enable web publishers to manage their advertising space inventory and fill it with ads in an automated fashion.